The Cast Of ‘Happy Endings’ (And Sinbrad) Made A Harlem Shake Video

The Harlem Shake is quite possibly the stupidest thing the Internet has ever forced upon me. It is so, so stupid. “Oh, look at me. I’m an idiot with a helmet on. Hey look, now I’m surrounded by idiots.” That is my impression of the Harlem Shake.

Actually no, that is my impression of whatever the hell the idiots in all those videos are doing, because as Emma Carmichael at Deadspin pointed out, it is not the Harlem Shake. “The Harlem Shake” is a dance that has been around for decades, and has nothing to do with the present iteration. They just took the name and slapped it on a different, crappier dance. It would be like me filming myself eating spaghetti while wearing a dinosaur costume and calling it The Charleston. Everything about it is stupid and I hate it.

BUT.

The cast of Happy Endings just made a Harlem Shake video, and after watching it I am willing to temporarily put aside my intense dislike of the whole thing for two reasons: 1) It starts with Elisha Cuthbert doing a very goofy and terrific dance, and 2) Damon Wayans, Jr. brought back Sinbrad, his character’s “AWWWWWWWWWWW SNAP” loving ventriloquist dummy. Please make a note: The degree of difficulty on this was very high, and they barely skated by even with both of those factors in their favor. This is not an excuse for you and your friends to continue doing the Harlem Shake. Please stop.

That Esquire channel should rescue Happy Endings and Community from cancellation. That’s how you launch a new cable channel. I’d also add Parks & Rec to that list, but I don’t know if NBC is stupid enough to cancel it. Of course I wouldn’t put anything past them.

At least with this ‘meme’ there’s a fair amount of variety in the execution. With Gangnam Style you can only go in any one direction with a parody. Here’s the Star Trek Gangnam, or the LOTR Gangnam. At least with Harlem Shake you can have setup and the punchline can be wildly varied. This was one of the better ones. The Daily Show’s Moment of Zen the other night was a great one too. Plus…it’ll be gone next week.